For super-dog bolt (voice of john travolta) every day is filled with adventure danger and intrigue -at lest until the cameras stop rolling. When the star of a hit tv show is accidentally shipped from his hollywood soundstage to new york city he begins his biggest adventure yet - a journey in the real world. Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 03/20/2009 Starring: Voice Of John Travolta Voice Of Randy Savage Rating: Pg

Bolt is a funny animated film about a dog who thinks he has superpowers. It is also a movie about friendship, perseverance, and the power of believing in oneself. Everyone knows that superheroes on television are not real, but super-dog Bolt (John Travolta) is a canine star who has been carefully raised to believe that he really possesses superpowers. Bolt is completely devoted to his human co-star Penny (Miley Cyrus), so when Penny is captured by the evil Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell) in their latest television episode and then Bolt accidentally gets loose in the real world, Bolt sets off on a journey to save her. Bolt is confounded when his super powers are suddenly ineffective, but inspiration strikes and Bolt quickly discovers the mysterious, power-stealing effects of Styrofoam packing peanuts. An encounter with alley cat Mittens (Susie Essman) gives Bolt some eye-opening lessons about being a real dog in the real world, while star-struck, ball-enclosed hamster Rhino (Mark Walton) revels in the opportunity to serve as Bolt's sidekick in the quest to rescue Penny. The trio traverses the United States from waffle house to waffle house on a hysterical quest to find Penny and prove that the relationship between Penny and Bolt is real. In the end, Bolt, Mittens, and Rhino learn that everyone is special in their own way and they discover the true power of believing in oneself and one's friends. Select theaters showed Bolt in Real-D 3-D which features some nice effects, but the film is probably equally enjoyable in the traditional format. A fun film with a nice message and a huge dose of cute, Bolt is good entertainment for the entire family. --Tami Horiuchi

Stills from Bolt (Click for larger image)

Customer Reviews:

Great movieI did not know what to expect when I first got this movie but I ended up loving it. It is definitely not what I expected in terms of story line but it ended being another great Disney DVD. I love the karate chop that Bolt does to human...(see it you will understand)...more info

BOLT A FANTASTIC STORY!Bolt is awesome! Its so cute and it had me laughing through the entire thing. a must see for anyone!!!! I will watch this one again and again! ...more info

Family funI wasn't expecting much from Bolt. I rented it because my friend's 3-year old daughter watches it all the time and so I thought my 3-year old may like it as well. She did. And so did I; we both watched it together and I'm not sure which of us liked it more. After convincing my wife to give it a try, she said we needed to buy it. Hear, hear! It's funny, it's clean and it's entertaining for adults as well as small kids. Recommended....more info

Great Family Film, But a Little Violent for Really Young OnesI picked up Bolt so we'd have a dog movie for our almost two-year old son to watch, and he pretty much loves Bolt. The good thing is, I enjoy watching it with him as well. Some very good humor in it, as well as a strong story about family and finding your own inner strengths. The intro sequence, however, was a bit more action-packed and violent (although it is supposed to be "fake" TV violence) than I expected from a family / children's film. The show Bolt stars in must be a prime time action show, and likely would be rated for older ages than this movie is.

Anyway, so long as we watch it with our son, he is okay. We just need to help him understand that what's happening on screen isn't real and be there to help him through the rougher spots at the beginning.

As with all recent Disney and Pixar Blu-Ray releases, the picture and sound is absolutely stunning and frankly it's impossible to imagine either of them being better.

The best part? Jenny Lewis on the soundtrack. Was not expecting that. Very cool....more info

Great movie!!This is a great movie for the family and looks amazing in hi-def.And for the 3 copys in one you cant go wrong.Great buy!!...more info

Great Disney MovieIt is a pure Disney, family fun movie. It looks like Disney had the help from Pixar, because the movie looks great. It is very well done with a great story and characters. I would definitely recommend this to anyone....more info

Great Disney MovieIt is a pure Disney, family fun movie. It looks like Disney had the help from Pixar, because the movie looks great. It is very well done with a great story and characters. I would definitely recommend this to anyone....more info

Very funnyMy boyfriend and I found this movie to be quite humorous!! I am at the prime age of 25 and my boyfriend is 26 we both thought it was great even at our age....love the hamster.......more info

"Are you mad?! You don't know the power of styrofoam!"It's almost unfair for BOLT that it has to follow all these other animated kid classics from Pixar and Disney. Otherwise, I think this film garners even more props. As it is, the word on BOLT is strong and very positive. I personally think it ranks up there with the likes of A BUG'S LIFE, MONSTERS, INC., FINDING NEMO, THE INCREDIBLES, WALL-E and the TOY STORY flicks. BOLT is ideally suited for children, with its flawless visuals, relatable humor, and its sweet message. Yet it's sophisticated enough that the grown-ups will walk away also having had a great time.

The cute opening scene shows us how Penny comes to choose the tail-waggly, slobbery puppy Bolt at the Animal Rescue shelter. Cut to five years later, and Bolt has become a huge television star. His show features him as a super-powered canine caught up in secret agent shenanigans. It's a popular show, but the network wants to amp it up even more. Accordingly, the latest television escapade climaxes with Penny being kidnapped. This gets us to the meat of the plot.

Bolt makes his residence on the Hollywood movie lot; he has in fact never been out in the real world. And here's the thing. Bolt believes that all this secret agent stuff is real, believes that he has super powers and that Penny has been really kidnapped. Frantic to rescue his person, Bolt breaks out of his studio trailer and so plonks himself straight into real life.

From this point on, the movie follows a tried and true storyline, that of the devoted pet finding its way back home, this particular trek adhering to a New York to L.A. itinerary. The existential twist here, of course, is that Bolt is so very convinced that he has these extraordinary attributes; he thinks that he really is super-strong and has laser vision and a super-bark - and it takes most of the film to resolve this identity crisis. There's a lot of fun for the audience as the film at first lets Bolt down easy. Each time he tries to apply a super-power and it fails him, circumstances surface which offer him a credible explanation (the uber-explanation being the sinister presence of styrofoam packing peanuts, which Bolt comes to regard as his kryptonite). The story then also becomes about Bolt gradually relaxing and learning what it's like to be a real dog, so wrapped up was he before in his fake reality. Voiced terrifically by John Travolta (and I didn't even know it was Travolta 'til the end credits rolled around), Bolt is an instantly endearing lead. There's a streak of sentimentality which runs thru the film, but what really lends texture are Bolt's key supporting characters and those side characters, and specifically Bolt's initially adversarial relationship with Mittens, the street-savvy alley cat and Bolt's polar opposite in character traits. Bolt is all optimism and sort of brandishes this sense of entitlement, while Mittens is the cynical, world-weary vagabond surviving on her wits. When we first meet Mittens, she's shaking down pigeons for food scraps. I liked her right away. I guess it's only karma that Bolt and Mittens eventually end up muy sympatico.

Miley Cyrus is good (but underused) as Penny, but the awesome surprises are Susie Essman as Mittens and Mark Walton as Rhino, the enthusiastic chubby hamster sidekick rolling around in a bubble - and both are wicked scene stealers. Mittens is wonderfully snide, while Rhino is, well, the hamster's insane, almost disturbingly so (and yet I couldn't stop laughing at his lines and antics). I couldn't help snickering at one scene, in which Bolt and Rhino, having infiltrated an animal shelter to rescue Mittens, are peeking at a security guard - and Rhino offers to snap the guard's neck. Hah! And if you're looking for more hamstery fun, included in the single DVD is the 4-minute animated short "Super Rhino" which has Rhino gaining super powers. Also fun are that pair of "evil" cats and, omigosh, those New York pigeons (these are the side characters I mentioned).

It's a given that Bolt will reunite with Penny, Disney wasn't gonna mess with that formula. But, to echo that one maxim, the fun is in the journey. The meat of the story is during the road trip, rife as it is with surprises, laugh out loud humor, and some sweet, heartwarming moments. And, because BOLT also caters to adult sensibilities, sly references are dropped regarding Hollywood and its shady citizens (the most absolutely annoying of whom is Penny's agent).

One highlight (of many) is the exhilarating, exquisitely choreographed first eleven minutes which owe something to THE MATRIX and demonstrate Bolt's impressive "super powers" (including an impeccably delivered karate punch *snicker*). The time lapse stuff is very cool, and I even liked that one small touch of an explosion causing a distant soda papercup to slowly keel over. I saw the ending coming a mile away, but by that time the movie had already worked its magic on me, so I didn't even mind the clich¨¦d feel of it. BOLT follows on the heels of exceptional animated children's films and, like those other films, it is slick yet full of heart, is sophisticated yet retains a sense of wonder, is amiably goofy but also witty. BOLT sparks the imagination, but also reduces you to one of those folks who sickeningly go "Gaga googoo" at precious babies or "Aww! Who's a good boy?" at cute puppies. And is that what happened to me during this film, you ask? Ruefully, I say, "Yes, dammit."...more info

Very EntertainingWe watched this on my birthday with my 16 month old Grandson. He enjoyed it and the adults did also. Great family movie....more info

Family funI wasn't expecting much from Bolt. I rented it because my friend's 3-year old daughter watches it all the time and so I thought my 3-year old may like it as well. She did. And so did I; we both watched it together and I'm not sure which of us liked it more. After convincing my wife to give it a try, she said we needed to buy it. Hear, hear! It's funny, it's clean and it's entertaining for adults as well as small kids. Recommended....more info

Nice Disney MovieI like the new Blu-Ray and DVD combo packs. That means I can see the movie with the kids on my PS3 and we can also take the DVD to see it in the Van while traveling. Great combo pack. The movie is good. My kids liked it. ...more info

One of the bestI love epic/war movies, action flicks with actual plots AND the welldone animated kid movies. It is original, very funny, deeply emotionl to any dog lovers, which I assuredly am, and all around entertaining. A top rank along with Monsters Inc, and The Incredibles....more info

So soThis is a pretty good movie , just the middle part is just so boring and kind of dragging, not even interesting for my little ones and of course, me. The beginning and the end is pretty good, a little bit overrated, I believe, way below Finding Nemo, the Incredibles, Madagascar, Shrek, etc. Not bad, just kinda dragging in the middle part of the movie. So it's not too special, either. Nothing wrong if you have enough time to watch....more info

Corny beginning, but hits its stride wonderfully.Bolt / B001OMU6UW

*Spoilers*

I'm a big sucker for animated movies in general and movies about puppies, kittens, and clever little girls in particular, so it was pretty much a given that I'd like "Bolt". The biggest question, really, was just how much I'd cry.

"Bolt" opens smoothly, with the set-up presented (Bolt is the star of an action show, where he uses his super powers to protect his clever owner, Penny, not unlike a souped-up version of Brain from Inspector Gadget: The Original Series) vividly and amusingly as Bolt uses his 'super bark' to thoroughly decimate a onslaught of cars while Penny darts skillfully in and out of traffic. Of course, all this is just a television show, which we learn early on but which Bolt is not-so-blissfully unaware of.

Then follows some exposition dialogue which is unfortunately ham-fisted and creates more problems than it solves. To wit: in order for the movie script to work, Bolt has to really believe that his television world is the real world. In order to explain this, the script writers opted to go for an eccentric director who has constructed Bolt's entire reality a la The Truman Show (Special Collector's Edition). Unfortunately, about five seconds worth of thought breaks this down completely as it's one thing to have "on site" special effects and no double takes in a slow-paced reality show about an insurance agent and it's quite another to have it in a show with a super-hero dog. Furthermore, viewers are likely going to be bothered by the timeline: it is implied that Bolt was Penny's dog when she was a child, before she became the co-star of the show, then her "father" (an actor) was kidnapped, just before turning Bolt into a super-dog. This means that either the actor who plays her father really IS her father (he doesn't seem to be) or Bolt didn't pay much attention to the family life around the house. Or something. It's just too convoluted, it's unnecessary for the script, and it bogs down the movie making replay value on this particular bit pretty low. Then again, this is a movie aimed at kids, so maybe I'm being too nitpicky.

When Bolt escapes from his trailer, intent on rescuing Penny from the clutches of villainy, he is astonished to see that his super powers suddenly don't work anymore. As he works his way back to Penny, he takes a female cat hostage (on the advice of three pigeons lifted, pretty clearly, out of Animaniacs, Vol. 1) and collects an overly excitable gerbil who, being a veteran couch-potato, recognizes Bolt as being a super-dog without recognizing that he is, in fact, an actor. When Bolt is eventually forced to confront the fact that he does not, in fact, have super powers, he is (to my delight) no less determined to find Penny - now out of love, rather than duty. Along the way, Bolt learns what it means to be a 'regular dog' while he teaches his companions how to find joy in a life that they thought no longer held anything for them. They realize, as a group, that the quiet life is a best life.

I really enjoyed "Bolt", despite the initially painful set-up, as the movie finds and hits its stride quickly after that and rolls smoothly on from there. Bolt is a wonderful hero, never annoying or insufferable either because of his super-powers or without them. He doesn't succumb to self-pity and he remembers, always, his friends and what they have done for him. Penny, too, is a wonderful character, balancing her responsibilities carefully and yearning for a 'real life' for her darling dog and, perhaps, for herself. The ending is particularly heartwarming and satisfying and - despite many 'incredible journey' type movies - the anxiety of separation is mild and fairly downplayed. Certainly, this is a superb movie for children, and most adults will enjoy the ride....more info

Another must have in your Disney DVD collection!Disney has done it again by putting out another great CG movie. Although this one does not invovle Pixar at all, which Disney has been trying to seperate from, nonetheless it is still a great quality movie. The voice acting is phenomenal by John Travolta, and Miley actually took this role seriously and gave the character a lot of life. Being an adult doesn't mean you can't enjoy the movie and satisfy your innner childhood as with all the rest of the Disney/Pixar movies. The action scenes were great and entertaining, and this is one of the most stunning HD quality CG movies that Disney has made so far. Cars is still the most stunning HD wise. The hamster just kept on making you laugh throughout the movie. There is even a tear jerker in the end as always with all Disney movies.

If you are trying to decide if the Blu Ray version is worth the price, lemme tell you that you should not even have a second doubt of buying this on Blu-ray format. The visuals are stunning gorgeous and flawless. If you own a HD TV and you are able to play Blu-ray there's just no good excuse not to own this on Blu-ray....more info

Great kids movieI wasn't all that "into" this movie starting out...its confusing and a bit slow BUT my 3 1/2 yr old grandson LOVES it! Many times after watching it over and over with him, I see he understands the disappointment and sadness BOLT feels after learning his "life" is a TV show and not real.

A good "clean" movie for kids, not an epic like "Lion King" but good, fun for kids.